The climate relating to law enforcement interactions with the public in the United States has drastically changed over the past few years. The public entrusts law enforcement officers to conduct themselves ethically and with a mutual respect for the public. However, some instances where law enforcement officers have purportedly not handled interactions with the public correctly have been a platform that some in the public have used to, at best, question law enforcement tactics, and, at worst, disparage the law enforcement officers.
Many instances where people in the public have questioned law enforcement tactics involve questions of whether the law enforcement officers used an excessive amount of force. In the past, these questions may not have been answered satisfactorily due to a lack of credible factual accounts of events. For example, the only available account was from a sole officer that was present and who was implicated in possible wrong-doing. In other instances, inconsistent eye-witness accounts could lead to more questions than answers.
Recently, many law enforcement departments have deployed video cameras (“dash-cams”) on the dashboards of patrol cars in an attempt to clearly document law enforcement officer's interactions with the public. However, since these dash-cams are on fixed location on the patrol car, they may be unable to capture all events, such as when a law enforcement officer departs from the patrol car and pursues a suspect out of view of the dash-cam. Even more recently, law enforcement departments have deployed video cameras (“body cams”) that are worn by individual law enforcement officers. The increased mobile nature of body cams can allow the body cams to capture more events and interactions of the law enforcement officers with the public.
The purpose of these video cameras is generally passive—that is, to capture data. The video is to provide a clear record of events that occur in the course and scope of an officer's duty. The video captured by these video cameras can be used as evidence of official misconduct or can be used to exculpate or exonerate a law enforcement officer.